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Blah Blah Blah basic text (i.e. description, speech, etc)

Blah Blah Blah Thought or some transaction within someone's mind

Blah Blah Blah Kyuubi talking Jutsu will also be bold

BLAH BLAH BLAH yelling or emphasis of some sort

Naruto of the Nine Tails

Rated M for language, violence, adult content, and graphic imagery

Edited: 7/22/11

Chp 19: Pyrrhic Victories

Training Ground 44

Hyuuga Hanabi vs Hyuuga Neji

"…Oh that can't be good," Inner Sakura muttered, staring at the board as she voiced the thoughts of anyone who knew Neji.

Neji was already on the floor and waiting, staring balefully at Hanabi as she made her way down the stairs.

"You have something to say, cousin?" Hanabi asked as she came to stand across from him.

"Forfeit," Neji replied simply, as though bored.

Hanabi's brow creased in confusion and irritation, "And why would I do that, cousin?"

"You cannot win," he stated, "better to save us both the trouble and give up now."

"That's funny coming from you!" Hanabi snorted.

For a long moment the two combatants stood very still, glaring across the space between them. Then, as one, both cousins turned in sync to stare expectantly at Hayate.

He didn't need further prompting.

"Hajime!"

In a burst of burst of speed the two prodigies clashed in a storm of motion and chakra, striking and grappling with eachother.

"You can't fool my eyes," Neji spoke over a brief deadlock before they pushed away from eachother.

"And what do your eyes see?" Hanabi asked hoping to distract him as they wove around eachother, trading blows at a furious pace.

"Your gaze wandered to the upper left, then to the lower right" he spoke, following up a leg sweep with a combination meant to disable her arm as she tried counter him, "The first is a sign of remembering the past, the second, generally associated with memories of pain…"

The two combatants jumped away from eachother, pausing as if by some unspoken agreement.

"You are remembering painful memories," he reasoned. "Other days, other battles much like this one where your prodigious skills did not surpass the experience of your opponent."

No one could see Hanabi's face, her bangs having fallen over her features in their exchange.

"You are a child playing ninja, you know this," he whispered, "And with a mindset like that…" he spoke, suddenly closing the distance between them.

Hanabi did not react.

"Your defeat is inevitable!" the Branch House prodigy spoke, thrusting the heel of his palm into Hanabi's chin…

Sasuke's Apartment

Suddenly Sasuke's nightstand shook as his MP3 player came to life, "MORTAL COMBAT!" ringing from the ear buds.

…only for the petite girl to dance out of his reach.

Hanabi was eerily silent as she seemed to glide away from her older cousin like a ghost through mist, dropping into the stance of the gentle fist as her long black hair collected behind her shoulders, unveiling her glacial expression like a mountain from the clouds.

Immediately, Neji and every other person adept in reading a person's body language knew he had crossed a line. Hanabi's face had become completely blank, lacking all life and emotion… a death mask, the face a person took when they intended to utterly destroy their opponent by any means available.

"A child, am I?" she asked, her usually sweet voice sending chills through the room.

Then she charged.

Neji had never seen this side of his normally upbeat and positive cousin. The way she moved, the look in her eyes, her pattern of attack, they were just so… lethal, cold and calculated, truly befitting of a shinobi.

'This is completely different,' Neji thought with grudging respect for his smaller cousin as she forced him to retreat, constantly parrying a continuous barrage of blindingly fast Jyuuken combinations.

"What? Do you think being Hiashi's daughter somehow changes that?" Neji asked, hoping to unbalance her.

"When did I ever say that our positions within the clan had anything to do with this?" Hanabi asked, her voice a deadly monotone. "I couldn't care less about which branch of our family we were born into."

Neji snorted. "So you are fighting simply to be petulant?" he sneered.

"No, I'm fighting you because you insulted my pride," she replied, striking at him like an enraged viper.

"Pride?" Kakashi wondered.

"When he said that her abilities as a prodigy wouldn't cut it," Hinata explained. "He implied that she has only advanced as she has because of the ability she was born with and that the time she spent training was meaningless."

"Nnngh," Neji sighed, annoyed with his opponent as she skipped away from another of his strikes. Why did she insist on prolonging the inevitable? 'This has gone on long enough,' he decided, shifting his stance, he hadn't completed the technique yet, but it would be more than enough for this.

"What's wrong Neji? Can't keep up?" Hanabi asked, calmly mocking the older boy when he didn't follow her, not seeing the danger of her situation.

"Oh no," Hinata whispered in horror. "Hanabi!" she cried, but it was already too late.

"…Rokujuyon Sho," Neji whispered, becoming a blur of motion, closing the distance and completing the technique.

"Ack!" Hanabi cried as the force of Neji sent her to the ground, gasping for breath.

"This is the unalterable difference in our strengths, Hanabi-sama, the impassable divide that separates the elite from the mundane. From the moment you entered this arena, your defeat was inevitable," Neji spoke.

From her position on the ground, Hanabi stared at Neji, making no attempt to pick herself up.

"Withdraw," Neji ordered.

Hanabi said nothing.

"Withdraw!" commanded Neji.

"No," she whispered, bracing herself against the concrete as she tried to get up.

"Why bother?" Neji sneered, "Your defeat is a forgone conclusion. Withdraw."

"...Fuck... you!" the child prodigy growled through her teeth as she gained her feet.

Neji could only raise an eyebrow at this.

"You...don't...get it," she panted, a mirthless grin splitting her lips. "I…won't… quit!" she cried, lurching forward.

"As you wish," Neji sighed, dropping into his stance, meeting his younger cousin's charge with a flurry of blows that stopped her cold. "You are beaten," he told her, his palm flat to her sternum.

"Kuf!" Hanabi coughed, choking up a fresh gout of blood.

"Withdraw," he repeated.

"Go to hell!" she barked, before spitting a wad of blood in her cousin's face, blinding him.

Hissing in surprise Neji tried to clear his vision only to double over as something connected with his diaphragm, 'What?' he wondered, trying to make sense of what had happened as he struggled to breath. 'She should barely be able to stand! How-!'

WHAM!

Something collided with his jaw, knocking him back and stunning him as he blinked the blood and saliva out of his eyes just in time to watch Hanabi's foot bury itself in his groin.

"Arrgh!" he cried, silently cursing himself as he crumpled to the ground. How could he be so careless?

"Divine that, jackass!"

Most of the men in the room winced in sympathy.

"Well, that's what he gets for not taking her seriously," Tenten sighed, as Lee scribbled furiously in his notebook. Where the hell had that come from anyway?

Unfortunately, Neji wasn't done yet.

'No...no... There is no way in hell that I'm going to lose,' Neji seethed, rage in his eyes as he picked himself up; he refused to lose, especially not to Hanabi of all people.

"Oh come on!" Hanabi groaned, "I just balled you like a watermelon!" she cried in frustration.

'Some of her pathways have righted themselves,' Neji thought, once more taking the Jyuuken stance, his eyes narrowing dangerously.

And then the two cousins charged, meeting in a clash of chakra, that under any other circumstances would be beautiful, each landing and evading blows at a furious pace, each driven by their own rage, it wasn't a match anymore…

They were killing eachother.

It seemed like the longest time, as they danced around eachother in a vicious parody of the grace that the Jyuuken was meant to possess.

Then, just as Hanabi threw another palm strike at Neji, he knocked it away with the back of his hand opening up Hanabi's defense but leaving his left side open ever so slightly.

'There!' the two Hyuugas thought, each exploiting the hole other's stance.

Before anyone could react, it was over. Hanabi struck Neji's chest just below his heart in the same instant that Neji struck her sternum.

And then, Hanabi fell.

"His finisher…" Tenten whispered in horror as recognized the Knife Strike shape of his hand.

"Winner Hyuuga Neji!"

Neji smirked; he'd won…

"Gack!" Neji gagged, surprise written all over his face as blood pooled in his mouth. 'H-how...how did that happen?' Neji wondered, clutching his chest as he fell to a knee.

"Dead…"

Neji's head snapped up to meet Hanabi's eyes, staring up at him from where she lay.

"What?" he demanded.

"You're dead… cousin," she repeated.

Then he understood, that strike she had used, it was a killing blow, she could have... Gritting his teeth Neji forced himself to his feet and turned to leave.

"Don't turn your back on me…"

Neji froze, "What did you say?" he hissed, whipping around recoiling in surprise when he found Hanabi pushing herself off the ground.

"Don't… turn…your… back… on…me!" Hanabi ground out as she, once again, forced herself to her feet.

This was too much for Neji.

"Why?" he demanded, trembling with suppressed rage, "Why do you stand? The match is over, you've lost. Why keep fighting? Why? Why? Tell me why!" Neji shouted, losing all semblance of composure.

For the longest time, Hanabi said nothing. She simply stared into Neji with the most unnerving calm, "Because I choose to..."

In an instant Neji was upon his smaller cousin, his hand pulled back to deliver a killing blow, his eyes wild with fury.

In the next instant the Jounin appeared, as if materializing out of thin air, encircling him, each in one way or another restraining the enraged boy.

"The match is over; stand down," Hayate ordered, standing calmly infront of Neji's glowing hand, "Medics!"

"Quite the match, eh Kakashi?" Gai asked, his voice subdued as he watched the medics tended to Hanabi.

There was no response.

This was not at all what Gai had come to expect of his friend, Kakashi's wit usually wouldn't allow for such a lapse.

"Kakashi?" he asked, turning to find his rival's eyes focused on a point somewhere over his shoulder and above them.

"…Neji just made a horrible mistake," the silver haired Jounin whispered, still starring solemnly past Gai.

Confused, Gai turned around, eyes searching for whatever it was that had his normally cool headed rival so shaken… he was not prepared for what he found.

Uchiha Sasuke was standing at the edge of the observation deck, his hands gripping the rail with such force that he had unconsciously crushed the cast iron, Sharingan spinning madly as his eyes bored into Neji's retreating form with complete, unadulterated, loathing.

'What will you do Sasuke?' Kakashi wondered as a scene from long ago played before his eyes once more…

Little Sasuke, sobbing inconsolably as he knelt in the street next to the smiling corpse of his brother, clutching a bloody kunai as he screamed like a wounded animal.

"I sincerely hope that those two don't meet in the finals," Kakashi muttered, never taking his eyes off his student as Sasuke's eyes twisted into a cruel parody of the Sharingan pinwheel. Kakashi knew what this would mean, Sasuke would never forgive Neji for this… just like Sasuke could never forgive himself.

End Notes

Ha! Show of hands, who got blindsided by the ending? Come now don't be shy, I've been waiting to spring that on you since chp 2!

Now, before any of you start getting any ideas, Sasuke does NOT have the hots for Hanabi. It is simply that the concept of family members trying to kill each other hits a little too close to home.

Anyway, as always feel free to submit Omake or give me suggestions on how to improve the fic and no Sasuke does not have the same Mangekyo that he does in cannon… stupid atom rip off. Anyway, now you all know why Sasuke is different from cannon so XP to all you unbelievers who ripped on me for making him out of character.

Fair warning the next chp will be filler, mostly a chp to show which Omake were actually part of the fic and which were just for fun since some people seem to be confused. Then I will most likely throw you a bone and give a flashback chp of just what happened the night of the Uchiha massacre…this will, of course, be after I reread the rest of the story and revise it... again.

And for the love of god if I misspelled something or there are glaring grammar issues PLEASE tell me.